- Here it is! The distruction of America by a man & his administration who considers the Party with pigsty (aka pork barrell) much more important than The United States of America with its Declaration & Constitution and more important, certainly, than the American People this Administration has lied to regarding 'protection & affordable'.
- No ignorance or lack of knowledge on the part of the socialist, democratic party. Just the arrogance & fool's paradise of belief that because an election was won, it is the right of the winners to change the Declaration & Constitution of the United States of America. That from a man who professes to be a graduate in Constitutional Law! Flat Out - In Your Face - Socialist Declaration of If You Don't Like It - tough! We- The Socialist, Democratic Party - are the party of power, force, & perpetrator of Our Party's definition of Truth. And including the Denial of Truth of "..of the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature (science) and Nature's God (Scripture)entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind... " "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...." AND most important: The importance of the self-absorbed, leftist, blinded, Socialist, Democratic Party is well stated in: "..But I know you (DSParty), that ye have Not the Love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name, & ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name (Mr. Hussain Obama), him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one(Socialist Democratic party) of another(Obama, Reid, Pelosi), and seek not the honour that cometh from God(of Nature & Nature's Law, aka Founders) only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses(the Founders), in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses(the Founders), ye would have believed me: for he(they) wrote of me. But if ye believe not his(Founders) writings, how shall ye(Socialist,Democratic Party) believe my words?..(John5:42-47)" ( ) are this writers!
- Those of you Senators or Congressional representatives who felt you backgammon, solitare, & outside entertainment more important than love of country, Consitution you have taken a Oath to support, respect for Americans here and abroad who work in the belief of this Nation founded under God -- Do Not Be Proud Of Your Personal Individual Responsibility to Your Nation - along with the rest of 'We the people'. You are Fools & being fooled! You are and will be Shamed!
Health Care ‘Reform:’ $500 Hammers and the Reverse Economies of Bureaucratic Scales
by Thomas Del BeccaroAt the center of the health care debate is the simple – but profound – question of whether government can deliver services, in this case health care services, better than private enterprise sensibly regulated. President Obama clearly believes that the ‘public option will not only be more equitable but more efficient as well – a claim he made when he spoke to the Joint Session of Congress earlier this year. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
The reason Obama is wrong, and the Left in general on issues of public options versus private enterprise, is simple human nature. When it comes to such matters, it was never so well explained as by the legendary Milton Friedman:
“There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.”
If you extrapolate that logic, you come to understand why the US Defense Department paid $500 for hammers during the 1990’s – an occurrence which infuriated the Left largely because they were anti-military and the rest of us because of the sheer waste. The reason for such waste was rather simple: a government bureaucrat was not spending his own money on himself – but other’s money on goods and services for others. But it wasn’t only that – there also is the issue of what I call the reverse economies of bureaucratic scales.
Realize that if you are a one-man shop selling lemonade – you know quite well the costs of your goods, your selling price and ultimately the bottom line. You have every incentive to be vigilant on all counts so as to achieve a profit. As any person in business will tell you though, the more employees you hire, the harder it is to keep a close eye on them and therefore a close eye on costs. For huge corporations, with what amounts to their own private bureaucracies, the problem is not one of simple arithmetic – but of geometric proportions because there are so many more potential opportunities for waste. That is a simple fact of doing business because the greater the number of employees – the more distant they are from the bottom line.
It is such a major concern that larger companies hire whole divisions of people dedicated to analyzing and streamlining costs. In doing so, they can strive to keep production costs low and they can achieve or maintain economies of scale, i.e. the ability to produce more units at a lower cost per unit as the number of units sold goes up. Even though that is hard, it occurs because the profit motive keeps private business owners more than concerned that they are not buying $500 lemons.
Governments, however, simply do not have the same motive. First, unlike business, a government bureaucrat knows that an unspent allocation may not be reallocated in the future thereby resulting in a loss of power and prestige. Literally. Thus, reducing budgets for efficiency purposes is simply not a priority – especially since they cannot benefit from the cost reduction.
Beyond that, governments simply do not dedicate nearly the amount of time and energy to costs/benefits analysis or costs oversight as does private enterprise – because they are spending somebody else’s money on somebody else on a grand scale.
Finally, and this point cannot be hammered home enough, the Obama plan will create, over time, the largest single bureaucracy in world history – over 110 new agencies/departments in all. In other words, the geometric potential for waste will be beyond any prior experience we have seen.
All combined, that results in reverse economies of bureaucratic scales, i.e. bigger systems result in geometrically larger waste, fraud and abuse – or, as you know it, the Department of Defense paying $500 a piece for hammers.
That is why comparisons to smaller public health care systems around the world, such as Canada, are false comparisons. Canadians spend just under $200 billion on health care a year. The US, on the other hand, spends well over $2 trillion dollars a year and those reverse economies of bureaucratic scales produce over $47 billion waste in just Medicare – over $1 in every $10 spent by the program.
You shouldn’t have to be hit over the head to know how many more $500 hammers can be hidden in $2 trillion system than one less than 1/10 that size – unless, of course, the cost of buying the hammer isn’t nearly as important to you as being in charge of wielding it.
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Health Care’s Coming Heart Attack – A Pre-Obama Care Death Panel?
by Thomas Del BeccaroIf you would like a pre-Obama Care window into the possible future of American Health Care–if Democrats in Congress are successful in passing their sweeping health care legislation, you need look no further than government imposed rationing of heart disease prevention in this country. It is a travesty in the making and should demonstrate to everyone the capricious nature of government control over our health care.
I am writing of the Obama Administration’s – regulatory decision – to go ahead with a massive cut in Medicare payments to cardiologists. I emphasize that this is a regulatory decision because it was not made by the Congress legislatively (not that that would be ok) but, instead, it was made by the massive Health and Human Services Department of the US Government. Given the limited resources of the Medicare budget, in order to increase payments to general practitioners (in an effort to attract more such doctors – a good idea), bureaucrats needed to gore somebody’s ox and cardiologists were chosen (a horrible idea).
The decision to do so is astonishing.
Keep in mind that the very purpose of health care is to improve the health and therefore the lives of Americans. The cardiologist community has been wildly successful in that endeavor. Although heart disease remains the #1 killer of Americans, the mortality rate for heart attacks has plummeted. For instance, the post-heart attack, 30-day mortality rate decreased from 18.9 percent in 1995 to 16.1 percent in 2006 and the in-hospital mortality rate decreased from 14.6 percent to 10.1 percent.
Further, between 1994 and 2006, the mortality rate among women 55 and under who suffered a heart attack dropped an incredible 52.9%. For men in that same age group the drop was 33.3%. According to the author of the mortality study that determined those latter figures: “It appears that risk factors, which may be controlled through prevention efforts, are very important in driving these mortality reductions.”
Given those figures, it is hard to argue with the success of cardiologists who sit on the forefront of heart care and heart disease prevention – unless, of course, you are a government bureaucrat.
Rather than pouring more dollars into an obviously successful branch of medicine that is saving lives (the ultimate purpose of health care?), the Obama Administration is going ahead with a plan to cut nearly $1.5 billion from Medicare payment to cardiologists. Obama is doing so by such devices as literally eliminating reimbursement for certain services and/or reducing the amount they will pay for others. Case in point, cardiologists have been able to bill for an extended first visit with Medicare patients to get their history and to recommend a course of treatment. As of January 1, 2010 – no longer.
As a lawyer, I can tell you that the first visit with a new client is essential to obtaining an understanding of the needs and concerns of a client. In my case, I can tell you that almost all of the time, those clients know exactly what has happened to them, i.e. they have been sued or not been paid or had an obvious accident. Nevertheless, it takes time, at least an hour if not more, to truly understand the needs of a new client – and lawyers are not saving lives.
Cardiologists, on the other hand, who do save lives – have to deal with new patients who symptoms are far less defined than a client that has had a specific event happen to them. Indeed, how many people truly know how to describe their medical condition to a doctor? Especially for something as serious and as difficult to understand as their overall heart health? Most people are not that articulate on the subject and that is why it takes at least as much time for a cardiologist, as it would a lawyer, to meet and confer and make recommendations to a first time patient – it is that process which is part and parcel of cardiologists success, i.e. “risk factors . . . controlled through prevention efforts.”
Incredibly, Medicare has decreed that cardiologists will no longer be paid for more than twenty minutes for that essential service! Just twenty minutes to meet a new patient; discuss their medical history, their life-style, their symptoms, to transcribe it all and to make recommendations. You heart, your life, twenty minutes.
When you combine that with massive reductions in payment for other care from cardiologists – so low that such care would have to be delivered at a loss by many cardiologists (for those that stay in business) – you may just have the ultimate government rationing of care – a panel of bureaucrats determining who gets what essential care, i.e. a kind of death panel. After all, can anyone seriously argue that once these cuts are put in place In January, that the gains of cardiologists’ in savings lives, at the very least, will be slowed if not reversed?
Keep in mind that it has been said by the Democrats that Medicare is the model for the coming Obama Care. While I understand that choices have to be made, this terrible decision made by bureaucrats may just be as serious as the heart attacks they are no longer interested in preventing.
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Here is your Socialist, Democratic Debacle which occurred while playing solitair & backgammon...
pdated December 12, 2009
Senate Dems Defeat GOP Attempt to Filibuster $1.1T Spending Bill
AP
The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday turned back a Republican effort to block a final vote on a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.
pdated December 12, 2009
Senate Dems Defeat GOP Attempt to Filibuster $1.1T Spending Bill
AP
The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday turned back a Republican effort to block a final vote on a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.
RECOMMEND (8)
AP
Dec. 6: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid speaks to the media on Capitol Hill. (AP) Reid needs Help:
he has forgotten whose flag flys outside & where he is free to assist our Nation in the largest debacle of a
mistake in its history. Never mind the man who calls himself President & his denial of Oath of Office.
WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday turned back a Republican effort to block a final vote on a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.
The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year's unfinished budget work -- only a $626 billion Pentagon spending measure would remain -- into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation.
The 60-34 vote largely along party lines met the minimum threshold to end the Republican filibuster, a legislative maneuver to delay a final vote on a bill. A final vote on the spending package was set for Sunday afternoon to send the measure to President Barack Obama to sign.
Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an Orthodox Jew who walks miles (kilometers) to the Capitol when voting on the Sabbath, wore a black wool overcoat and brilliant orange scarf -- as well as a wide grin -- as he provided the crucial 60th vote an hour after the tally started.
The measure combines $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in mandatory payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, which provide health coverage for the elderly, disabled and poor. It wraps together six individual spending bills and also contains more than 5,000 home-state projects sought by lawmakers in both parties.
The measure provides spending increases averaging about 10 percent to programs under immediate control of Congress, blending increases for veterans' programs, the NASA space agency and the FBI with a pay raise for federal workers and help for car dealers.
It bundles six of the 12 annual spending bills, capping a dysfunctional appropriations process in which House leaders blocked Republicans from debating key issues while Republican lawmakers dragged out debates.
Just the $626 billion defense bill would remain. That's being held back to serve as a vehicle to advance must-pass legislation such as a plan to allow the government's debt to swell by nearly $2 trillion. The government's total debt has nearly doubled in the past seven years and is expected to exceed the current ceiling of $12.1 trillion before Jan. 1.
Saturday's bill would offer an improved binding arbitration process to challenge the decision by General Motors and Chrysler to close more than 2,000 dealerships, which often anchor fading small town business districts. It also would renew for two more years a federal loan guarantee program for steel companies.
The bill also caps a heated debate over Obama's order to close the military-run prison for terrorist suspects at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It would permit detainees held there to be transferred to the United States to stand trial but not to be released.
The bill would void a long-standing ban on the funding of abortion by the District of Columbia government and overturns a ban on federal money for needle exchange programs in the nation's capital. It also would phase out a D.C. school voucher program favored by Republicans and opens the door for the city to permit medical marijuana.
It would also lift a nationwide ban on the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs. These AIDS-prevention programs allow addicts to exchange needles used for injecting drugs to cut down the risk of spreading the HIV virus by sharing needles.
Federal workers would receive pay increases averaging 2 percent, with people in areas with higher living costs receiving slightly higher increases.
Shame on Each One Of You who would call yourself American! Nice words, but Politician is the only language you understand.
We Republicans can be and are just as political as you. But with One Huge Difference, We know when we are being lied to. We will not compromise our Principles for any party of any name; & Our Congressional Representatives have been standing & working hard to attempt to waken some of the remaining American Democratic Party from their self-absorption as if to say -- let the big guys fight it out. I'm just sitting here. Heck with the whole deal! Republicans haven't and won't perform like lemmings for anyone!
An American "...to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies." Catherine West, San Marcos, California
